I did this differently than I used to paint.
I painted this in grey scale and then threw down color in a multiply layer. On the one hand I didnt need to think about color until the very end but on the other hand the greyscale threw me off because I was doing the whole color=value thing in my head and so when it came time to color some bits, they were either too light or too dark.
i didnt use any reference for this, not that I'm taking pride in that at all, but rather I did it because I wanted to see just how much I could do from my mind. My only criteria for the assignment was the phrase "layer upon layer". c: